II. A ITAllYEST THAKKSGIVING. This was distinctly the idea of the Pentecostal fcstirnl. It was cbaract.etizcd: l. By a devout recognition of the Divine bounty in the frnit.s of the earth. 2. By a voluntary dedication to God of part of wh,tt be had given. There was the public ceremony of the two wave loaves. But the Israelite was required in addition to keep the feast with" a tribute of a free-will offering of his hand" (ver. 10). The offering was to be Yolnnt.ary, yet not without rule, but "according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee." 3. By a willing sharing of God's bounty with the needy (ver. 11). The stranger, the fatherless, the widow, were, as usual, not to be neglccteci. 'l'he remembrance of former bondage in Egypt was to furnish the "touch of nature" which would make this duty easy (ver. 12). Note: (1) Our gifts to God are worth- less, save as they are the expression of a willing mind (2 Cor. viii. 7-16; ix. 6-14). (2) Onr gifts to God ought to be proportionate to our prosperity (1 Cor. xvi. 2). (3) God's goodness to us (in harvests, in trade, in business generally) ought to be acknow- ledged by liberal gifts for his service. (4) God's goodness to us (in deliverances, etc.) should open our hearts in sympathy for others. III. A GOSPEL 'tl"PE. The figure of the firstfruits finds an abundance of applications in the New Testament. It is employed of the Jews (Rom. xi. 16), sanctified in their cornnant heads; of Christ, the "Firstfruits" of them that sleep (1 Cor. xv. 20-23); of first converts in a particular district (1 Cor. xvi. 15); of believers generally, as "a kind of firstfruits" of the redeemed creation (Jas. i. 18); of the 144,000 of the Apocalypse (Rev. xiv. 4), possibly "all the Church of Christ at any time on the earth; a limited company a.t any one time, capable of being numbered" (Rev. vii. 1-9). A more direct relation must be traced between the presentation of the firstfruits at Pentecost and the events consequent upon the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit (Acts ii.). It is surely not to be ascribed to accident that, as our Lord died on ·the Friday of the Passover-probably on the 14th of Nisan-so the disciples were kept waiting for the promised effusion of the Spirit till "the day of Pentecost was fully come;" and that on this day the great ingathering of three .thousand took place, embracing representatives from" every nation under heaven "-a truly glorious ottering of" firstfruits." May we pursue the coincidence further, and see in Christ, the solitary slicaf, raised from the dead on the same day that the first-cut sheaf was presented in the sanctuary (Nisan 16), the firstfruits of the harvest in prospect; while in the Church constituted and consecrated at Pentecost, the day of the offering of the wave loaves, we have the firstfruits of the harvest as realized. The wave loaves correspond in significance to the meat offering, and still more nearly to the shewbread. Bread, as the staff of life, the nourishing principle, stands for the presentation to God of the life so nourished, invofring the recognition of him as the Nourisher of it. In the possession of the believing heart by the Spirit of God, as the indwelling and abiding principle of spiritual life, we have the full realization of this thought, the fulfilment of the types of meat offering. The passage, Jas. i. 18, suggests the deeper idea that the Church constituted at Pentecost is itself only a kind of first.fruits of redemption. It is so in relation: 1. To the latter-day effusion of the Spirit (Acts ii. 17-20). 2. To creation as a whole (Rom. viii. 19-24). Other two points may be noted: 1. If our dates be correct, l'en~cost, like the Resurrection, fell on the first day of the week-the Spirit was given on the Lord's day. 2. As Pentecost was held by the Jews in commemoration of the giving of the Law, so God signalized it as the day of the giving of the Spirit, thus superseding the old dispensation by the new.-J. 0. Vers. 13-16.-The Feast of Tabernacles. I. A FEAST OF THE INGATHERING. (Ver. 13.) Held in the seventh month, when all the fruits of the earth had been ~atbered in. Thus: 1. Every stage of labour was sanctified by the recognition of God. At the Passover, when the sickle was thrust into the virgin grain; at Pentecost-, when the cereal crops were harvested; and now, at the close of the agricultural year, when the season's labours had yielded to the husbandman their full results. 2. 'l'he fruits of lal,c,ur were sanctified by dedication to God. The usual feasts were held, and shared with the needy (ver. 14), and free-will offerings (vers. 16, 17) were presented to God, Bountiful giving is the appropriate return for bountiful receiving. II. A ME.MOllIAL OF PAST WANDERINGS. (Lev. xxiii. 43.) During the seven days of the festival, the Israelites were to live in booths. This symbolized, and served to Oil. XVI, 1-22,j THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY.
remin,l them of, the wandering, unsettled life of the desert. Booths were eredir,nc; of simpler constmction, and more in keeping with an agricultural festival, esp,~ci,tlly after the settlement in Canaan, than tents would have been. But there rnr.y hav,: been an nllusion also to actual circumstances of the journeyings, e.g. the first halt at Succr,th, i.e. booths (Exod. xii. 3; see Stanley). 'l'his memorial was instituted: 1. Thrit in the midst of their prosperity they might not forget the days of their adversity (eh. viii. 12-18). 2. '!'hat they might be reminded of God's gracious care of them. Booth~ or huts may, as Keil thinks, have been used instead of tents with reference to thrn idea. The booth was a shelter, a protection. So God promises to be to his Church, ,is he had been in the past, "a booth for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, anrl for a place of refuge, and for a covert from the stonn and rain" (Isa. iv. 6). 3. That their enjoyment of the goodness of the land might be enhanced by feelings of warm grati- tude, awakened by the sense of contrast. III. AN IMAGE OF PRESENT PILGR!MAGE. Though settled in C,inaan, the Israelites were not to regard themselves as in possession of the final rest (Heb. iv. 7, 8). The pilgrim state continued (Ps. xxxix. 12). It does so still. We still inhabit tabernacles (2 Cor. v. 1). Spiritual rest, the inward side of the Canaan type, is attained in Christ; but the full realization of the rest of God lies in eternity. Till heaven is reached, our state is that of pilgrims-wilderI1ess wanderers. "The admission of this festival in to Zechariah's prophecy of Messianic times (Zech. xiv. 18) is undoubtedly founded on the thought that the keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles is an expression on the part of the nations of their thankfulness for the termination of their wanderings by their reception into the peaceful kingdom of Messiah" (Oehler).-J. 0.